Photography Blogs

HDR Photo Tutorial: Using Photomatix Pro in Lightroom

Due to the immense popularity of the my last article on HDR photography in Lightroom (still #3 in the popular articles list), I decided it was time for another. Just recently, HDR Soft released their newest version of Photomatix Pro software which includes a plug-in for Lightroom. Well it seemed like the perfect fit for this week’s article. In order to demonstrate the seamless integration into Lightroom, I decided to produce the video you see below. Instead of showing you how the software works (there are tutorials and videos on HDR Soft’s WEB site for that), I opted to show you how it integrates into Lightroom. I was fairly impressed!

What’s more, I wanted to provide you, my readers, with an opportunity to try it out for yourselves. Included in this article is a section where you can download the source images, the preset I used to process the files in Photomatix Pro, and finally the Lightroom preset I developed to “finish the shot”. What more could you want, download Photomatix Pro from HDR Soft (free trial) and you can use the photos you see in the video to try it out!

HDR Source Photos for Video

The source files for this video were taken last year at a rock quarry in the vicinity of Freising. On this particular day I had the perfect conditions for shooting a number of HDR source photos. There was no wind to speak of, the sky was speckled with a bit of cloud cover and the sun – well, I just love it when the sun shines! The photo at the start of this article was also taken on the same day. You can see the almost perfect mirror-like reflections in both shots.

First photo in the HDR series.

Second photo in the HDR series.

And the third photo in the series.

Video: Photomatix Pro in Lightroom

This video shows the Photomatix Pro plug-in for Lightroom. It takes you through the steps to properly install the plug-in and then shows just how easy it is to produce HDR photos in Lightroom. What is also explored is the capability of using presets with Photomatix Pro to speed your work flow to quickly get those HDR shots back into Lightroom for final processing. A fun, light-hearted 8 minute video gives you a thorough introduction to creating HDR photos within Lightroom.

The HDR Photos from the Video

Once again, here are the completed shots, processed first with Photomatix Pro and then finished in Lightroom. You can watch them being created “live” in the video! After the video was shot, the only changes I made was to crop the photos just a little tighter than you see in the video. Hey, it’s a photographer’s perogative to make the shot look as good as it can.

The photo as it was sent back to Lightroom from Photomatix Pro..

And after a bit of post-processing in Lightroom.

Download Photomatix Pro

HDR Soft continues to offer a 30-day free trial of the Photomatix Pro software. You can follow either of the first two links below to get to their site. Or try your luck at winning a copy at the Flickr photo contest – option number three below.

Photomatix Pro Lightroom Plug-in on Adobe’s Lightroom Exchange – by following this link you will have the opportunity to download the Lightroom plug-in only via Adobe’s site. Ultimately you end up downloading it from the same link as the one above. But, you could leave a positive comment for others to see on this site.

Download the Photos and Presets

You don’t think I’d let you go home empty handed do you? I’ve prepared a “zip” file download containing the 3 (three) photos you saw in the video, the Photomatix preset and the Lightroom preset created in the video. These photos are being offered to you under the Creative Commons license. It means you can use these photos for learning purposes but credit to the original photographer (me) must accompany the photo(s) for any other use. These photos are not to be used for commercial purposes or passed off as your own. These are not photos you can do with whatever you please – the copyright remains with me! Read the details of the Creative Commons license that apply to these photos and presets.

Download the HDR Photos & Presets

Installing the Presets

Installing Presets in Lightroom 2 – this video is for those that need a little help in installing Lightroom presets. The video also gives you some tips for preset folder management and backing up your presets.

To install the preset in Photomatix Pro, you’ll have to extract the preset from the “zip” archive and manually copy it into the “Presets” folder in the directory you chose to install Photomatix Pro into.

37 comments to HDR Photo Tutorial: Using Photomatix Pro in Lightroom

Thanks for the post, very useful. I have a one question. I currently have Photomatix and Lightroom as individual so I always need to combine three photos in Photomatix first and then “manually” upload the HDR photo to Lightroom. Is it worth to buy the Plug-in so I don’t need to transfer photos manually.

Hi Sabrina, I would contact Geraldine (customer support) at HDR Soft. Depending on what version you have, an upgrade is free (from 2.x) and the Lightroom plugin is included! Follow the first link above to upgrade!
Cheers, Markus

I have lightroom 2.3 and I’ve installed photomatix 3.1.3 plus the plug in for lightroom, but I can’t really get it to work.
When I hit the “Export to Photomatix” I get the screen with settings for the exported files, and when I hit the “Export” button lightroom starts converting the images, and ’till now everything seems just fine. BUT when photomatix opens, nothing happens – it is as if it doesn’t recive the images, but only recieves the order to open.
Does anybody know how to fix this problem?

I know this doesn’t help much, but I tried to replicate the problem and couldn’t. Have you tried re-installing? After that the next step would be to contact HDRSoft. Just follow the link in the article.

Hi Mike,
Thanks for your feedback – glad you found it informative. You can definitely post a link to a photo (on Flickr or elsewhere). I’d love to see what you came up with! I took a quick look at your WEB site. It looks really good, nice photos and an all round well implemented Flash site!
Cheers, Markus

I have the exact same problem as you Kasper, it’s really annoying. I’ve tried everything to solve it, but found no solutions. It worked before with an older version of Photomatix and the plugin you had to install yourself.

Thorbjorn,
I have reviewed the FAQ at HDRSoft and could only find once bug – re:Export not working. I’ll put the link here so you can look for yourself. Perhaps you can try to locate where the exported files are “supposed” to be to try to narrow down the problem.

[...] out the video from profiPhotos, coverin the use of HDRSoft’s Photomatic Pro with Lightroom! Follow over to it HERE!And if you got some mad tax-return money burning a hole in your pocket, and you like the presets I [...]